


each and every breath i spend you are collecting

by skvadern



Category: Original Work
Genre: Altered Mental States, Blood Drinking, Captivity, Clothed Sex, Enemies to Allies To Lovers, Enthrallment, F/F, Grinding, Moderate Peril, Possessive Behavior, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, opulent vampire parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27054838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/pseuds/skvadern
Summary: Please, she mouths through slack lips. Magdalena inclines her head, and says nothing.A vampire hunter, trapped, enthralled and almost out of options, runs into an old... friend.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Vampire/Vampire Hunter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 120





	each and every breath i spend you are collecting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [screechfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/gifts).



> kit kit kit. from the moment i recognised ur discord handle n went HOLY FUCK THATS SCREECHFOX!! FROM THE AO3!! ive wanted to know u better. the fact that i now do is hands down the best thing to come out of this year. you're such a wonderful person, and i'm truly blessed to have u in my life. happy birthday, i hope u have a wonderful day. wish i could be there but sadly. Disease. have some vampires instead.  
> thank u to platoapproved for the incredible beta, ChaosMidge for bouncing around some really tasty ideas with me - they came up with the mirror bit. thank them - and the when in rome server for listening to me scream about something that was definitely Not rqg. promise ill shut up now.  
> title from die 4 you by perfume genius

Maria’s knees are melting, the joints loose and liquid. They won’t hold her weight reliably, buckling whenever she thinks she’s steady, forcing her to collapse onto the man walking beside her. He always laughs, low and slithering, and nudges her back upright, hands lingering on her arm. She wants to pull away from him – the reason why is lost in the thick haze settled over her, but she knows that he makes her skin crawl – but can never quite manage it.

The ballroom explodes out around them, and Maria’s feet almost come clean out from under her. She raises her boulder-heavy head and gazes blearily around the packed room, flinching at the sharp violins assaulting her ears.

Figures, everywhere, in clothes as colourful and fantastical as the most lavish costume drama, and just as archaic. They glitter with jewels, shimmer with silk and satin and glittering face powder, glow with precious metals. The crowd swirls around her, dancing and milling about; always a little too fast, a little too fluid. One of them veers close, and she stumbles away, falling back into another hard, cool body that moves to support her. She tries to pull away from this one too, but only manages to squirm, weak as a kitten, in her arms.

The monster cradling her bends and presses her face into Maria’s neck, taking a deep sniff. “A hunter!” she exclaims, and Maria can feel the stretched curve of the beast’s smile pressed against her bared neck.

They’d taken her gorget, the thick leather that had hugged her throat as solid and comforting as a friend’s arm. Without it, she feels painfully naked.

“Freshly caught,” the vampire who’d brought her here agrees, and that silver-arrow slice of rage in Maria’s guts wants to tear him open. Instead, she lets her eyes unfocus and stare off at the far wall, decorated with a massive gilt-edged mirror, as well-kept an antique as any monster here.

In that mirror, she stands almost alone in the ballroom, leaning back on nothing. Her eyes are wide and very dark, her cheeks blood-flushed under her tan. She looks helpless, desperate.

Tearing her eyes away, she focuses on the other scattered figures she can see in the mirror. All of them young, pretty, clothed in a variety of styles – whatever their masters found most appealing, she assumes. One of them, a beautiful blond man, is swaying gently in the air, head tipped back, eyes fluttering.

Two vivid red puncture marks stand bright on his exposed neck. As she watches, sick to the pit of her, blood trickles down from them, before vanishing. Like it’s been licked up.

Maria’s eyes burn as she closes them, and when they open again, she’s been turned away from the mirror, carried further into the crowd. The man, the victim, is lost.

Trying dazedly to find him again, Maria’s eyes skip over the flash of vivid red hair. It’s only when something catches at the back of her sodden brain that she turns her head, retraces her glance until she sees –

Her. _Magdalena_ , she’d called herself when they first met. The only living vampire whose name Maria knows.

The only one she’d let live. And hadn’t that been an interesting mission report?

She locks gazes with the vampire, stupidly relieved to see recognition in her eyes. That pale, sharp face is as perfectly expressionless as one of the fine marble statues dotted tastefully around the ballroom.

It’s not that Maria thinks she can trust this monster. She’s not that foolish. But every other monster in this room wants to rip her throat out, and when they’d… met, Magdalena had been given all the opportunities in the world to do just that, and had refused every one.

_Please_ , she mouths through slack lips. Magdalena inclines her head, and says nothing, and Maria wants to scream, spit at her – how dare she be so relaxed? Fuck, she could at least look _happy_ about Maria’s impending death, so Maria would know her as a monster as vile as the rest of them.

Then the vampire with a grip on her arm spins her around, and Magdalena is lost in a whirl of colour and light. She tries so hard not to stumble, not to look like the helpless prey-thing they’ve made her, but the monster always seems to know how to throw her off-balance. Maria’s throat is thick with humiliated rage.

The prickling of hungry eyes on her should be setting fire to her muscles, pushing her forward to slash and stab and wreck these smug, decaying fiends in this place where they feel most safe. But all she can do is follow the arc she’s guided into, head lolling and neck bared for any beast who fancies a look.

“Is that really an Artemisian, then? Or did you just dress some poor virgin up in a costume?” Oh hell. She _knows_ that voice.

“Magdalena, my dear!” her captor exclaims, bringing them to a stop. “I assure you, she’s the genuine article.” He twirls Maria in his arms to face Magdalena, a finely-carved statue in deep peacock blue, gold accents glittering in the chandelier’s glow. Her gown reminds Maria of Art Nouveau, for all that she knows Magdalena is far older than a single century.

“Go on,” the vile thing continues, sliding his hand under her arm and raising it like a marionette’s. “You can smell it on her, you know.”

Those dancing green eyes meet hers, and there’s the delight that she’d wanted to see. Anger burns low and heady in Maria’s gut as Magdalena leans in, takes a deep breath like she’s some rich aesthete at a wine tasting.

“Surprisingly, you’re right,” she murmurs – to the other vampire, with his hand still set proprietarily on her waist, but her eyes are still fixed on Maria’s. “Almost as if moonlight had a scent. How curious.” Her eyes flick away, pressing closer until Maria is caught between them. “What will you give me for her?”

Her captor lets out a laugh that almost doesn’t sound fake. “You really want this one? She’s rather unbroken, you know how her kind get. Tends to, ah, slip the noose.”

“Are you sure you’re not overstating the difficulty?” Magdalena purrs. “After all, you’ve managed to contain her.” She shoots Maria a look, _play along_ , and as bitter as her anger is, it’s easy to go limp, to allow herself to be drawn into this familiar monster’s arms. Magdalena holds her gently against her side, but her arm might as well be a steel bar for all that Maria can move away.

“She’s rather valuable,” her captor says, voice dripping so thick with greed the sound may as well be slime. “A true hunter. I shudder to think how many of our people have died at her blade.”

With her head tilted up, she can see the sly look spreading across Magdalena’s face. “Marcel, I trust you remember Helsinki as I do, yes?”

“I’m not entirely sure I’d go that far…” he trails off as one of Magdalena’s slim fingers chucks him lightly under the chin.

“I think we’re both well aware of what occurred,” Magdalena replies brightly. “Perhaps, with that in mind, you could see fit to part with this prize? For my sake? It’d make me so happy, dear.”

The look her captor gives Magdalena could burn through sheet metal. Even so, he lets his hated hands drop for Maria’s waist, and then the only thing holding her up is Magdalena.

For a single swaying moment, Maria allows herself to imagine she might be something approaching safe.

“You don’t want to sample the wares?” her captor inquires, and Maria tenses again. Her gaze flicks up to Magdalena, trying to gauge her reaction.

She seems calm, unruffled. “A woman can’t eat her dinner in peace?”

“Oh, of course, of course!” the vampire laughs. “Only, I’d hate to have you disappointed again, my dear.”

There’s some subtext there, something Maria can’t read, but that makes Magdalena’s eyebrow arch and her gaze sharpen. “Indeed,” she says, and the bottom drops out of Maria’s stomach.

_No_ , she mouths, but Magdalena isn’t watching this time.

A cool hand slides into her hair, working her tight braid looser, tilting her head to the side. Maria tries to fight it, tries so hard it almost _works_ , but then the hand tightens and forces her to meet Magdalena’s gaze and –

Her irises are a deeper green than Maria had thought possible, light glancing off every strand of emerald-tinted muscle. And her pupils – so deep, so dark. Hidden forest pools she could drop straight into and drown.

“Calm, my darling,” Magdalena tells her, and Maria does. It’s that easy. When she dips her head and noses at Maria’s exposed neck, staying still and letting it happen is nothing at all. 

Magdalena’s lips are so sweetly cool on her pulse, parting to sigh a chilled breath over her neck. Her tongue flicks out, soft and wet and a little rough, and Maria can’t stop herself from shivering when a delicate scrape of teeth follows its path.

Everything slows to a stop; the music, chatter and laughter fading out of her awareness. When Magdalena’s teeth sink through her skin, it’s as if they’re the only two left in the world.

It doesn’t hurt. She hadn’t expected that. The cleaving of her flesh, something else entering – it should feel like being stabbed. This is… very much not like being stabbed.

For a moment, she hangs suspended, unable to breathe through the shock of being pierced, _entered_. Then the warmth starts to spread, trickling through her artery and spilling straight into her brain. A whimper bleeds from her slack lips as Magdalena’s teeth slide from her. Then that maddeningly cool mouth closes around the wound she’s left, and Maria grips the slippery-smooth silk of Magdalena’s dress, bracing herself.

It’s not enough.

The suction drags at her, and Maria arches into it helplessly, mewling. Hot, wet drawing, as if Magdalena is running her fingers over Maria’s own naked soul, drinking her down. Maria can feel her eyes rolling back in her head, her body shaking as it tries to process the crashing waves of alien pleasure.

It’s over in moments, too soon, and Maria whines desperately as Magdalena pulls away, leaving her cold and bleeding and yearning for more of that sweet, bottomless pull. She gazes up at the pale face swimming back into view above her, smiling happily to see Magdalena still looking at her, even if she’s stopped feeding.

“Oh,” Magdalena whispers, pupils huge and devouring. “You’re _delicious_.”

The praise lights her up, so bright she wants to cry. She stares blindly up at Magdalena, skin on fire, heart pounding, wanting more – more anything, she’ll take anything, so long as Magdalena keeps looking at her like that.

She’s so beautiful. Maria had known she was beautiful, had wanted her secretly and shamefully, from the moment they’d met. Now, she can really appreciate just how lovely Magdalena is, with all her denial and deception stripped away - she doesn’t miss them. Lady above, she could look at Magdalena forever.

There’s words she can’t make out – they’re not important – and laughter skidding over her senses, and then she’s being directed, an arm looped around her shoulders, urging her forward. Maria goes, like a swimmer floating with the tide, swaying through the multicoloured mass of dancing figures until they’re out of the cavernous ballroom. There’s a corridor, a staircase that Magdalena has to practically carry her up, another corridor – a blur of light and shadow, only snatches standing out. A fine painting of a man stooped over a sleeping woman. An ebony statue of a faun, its features twisted into a straining grimace. A couple with blood dark on their chins, smiles bring as they turn back to the slumped figure between them.

All through it, Magdalena’s hands are steady and strong on her, keeping her upright. Bearing her away from the horrors.

Then a door clicks shut, the noise of the party cut sharply off, and they’re alone.

The room is quiet and dark, wood panelling dulling the candlelight until Maria’s head stops spinning quite so violently. Magdalena lowers herself onto something cushioned and soft, drawing Maria down with her, guiding her into her silk-covered lap and scooping her legs up. Her boots scrape against the fine brocade of the furnishing, but Magdalena doesn’t seem to care, so Maria doesn’t either.

Something is wrong – what it is, Maria can’t be sure, when it’s so distant and dulled – but she worries at it anyway, squirming a little.

The strong arms cradling her tighten just a little. “Shh, my lovely, we’re just going to sit here for now. Just to relax, let you calm down a little. You’ve had such a day, haven’t you?” When Maria nods, blessedly cool fingers cup her heated cheeks, cradling her head and taking its weight. “There, there, you’re safe now, dear hunter. No need to fight anymore.”

Her eyes burn, and Maria tries to blink the pain away, letting it spill wetly down her cheeks. When was the last time someone said that to her? When was the last time it was true?

Every muscle limp, she lets herself fall back against Magdalena. With her face buried in the silk of Magdalena’s sleeve, everything is dark and quiet, only a soft pulsing tone that she recognises from the last time she was enthralled. The swishing slide of hands through her hair, nails scratching pleasantly at her scalp, keeps her grounded in her loose, heavy body. It’s…

Peaceful.

Nothing’s been peaceful in a very long time.

She comes back to herself by degrees, muscle by muscle. Her ears still ring faintly, but her head is clearing, slowly enough that the enormity of the shit she’s in doesn’t fall on her head all at once. She gets it in bits and pieces, almost manageable.

Almost.

This time, when she struggles, Magdalena lets her stand, even helps her up. “Feeling better?” she inquires, hands running tenderly down her arms.

Magdalena. The vampire who’d torn into her throat in front of a gathering of salivating beasts.

_The creatures we hunt may be stronger than us, and faster, but they’re also very used to being at the top of the food chain. Rarely do they expect an attack_ . Use _that_.

As fast as she can manage, Maria surges forward, her arm at the monster’s throat. She slams them both into the wall as forcefully as she can, snarling in satisfaction as the vampire’s head smacks off the wood panelled wall.

The monster smiles down at her, head tipped back, the long line of her neck bisected by Maria’s tensed forearm. In the low light, her pupils reflect a soft, eerie green. “Really, dear little Artemisian? I save you from the hungry wolves, and this is the thanks I get?”

Maria glares up at her, sick to her stomach, furious beyond words. Worse, beneath the righteous rage sits the sick and bubbling knowledge that she’s utterly fucked. Trapped in a mansion full of enemies; no weapons, no phone or comms, no exit strategy. Down a good few mouthfuls of blood, head still reeling from several dissipating enthrallments.

The Ordo Dianae know she’s here, they must; she doesn’t know of anything that could block the aura of the holy brand that sits between her shoulder blades. But they won’t come for her. Hers is a practical order, and has always been; walking into this place would be suicide.

One of the monster’s hands comes up, long fingers curling around the wrist that still rests against her throat. The metal of her rings is as cool as if they were fresh from her jewellery box. “Let me help you,” she murmurs, and though her voice might be sweet and kind and melodic, there’s none of that honey-heavy resonance that Maria knows to fear. “You won’t last the night otherwise, we both know that. I can keep you safe.”

“And why would you do that, pray tell?” Maria snaps.

A curl of a smile, red-lipped and, Goddess preserve her, _fond_. “I’d miss you terribly if you died, my dear hunter.”

“I’m not your anything,” Maria replies sharply. Trying to think.

There is no way this will end well, whatever she does.She could run. Out a window, through the grounds, pit her training against the beasts’ senses and instincts. She could, if she wanted to give them a hunt.

There’s already blood in the water, after all.

As if she’s reading her mind – can she? Vampiric telepathy has never been proven one way or another, and Maria wouldn’t put anything past this creature – Magdalena’s thumb begins to draw circles on the delicate skin of her wrist. The hell of it is, the touch is actually _helping_ , drawing the tension out of her gently as spring rain.

Memories of their first meeting drag at her, pressed into a tight stone passage, waiting for the vampires out for both their blood to pass. Maria had been younger then, greener, and when Magdalena had taken her hand, she’d held on for dear life. Her touch had helped then, too, keeping her fast breathing from tipping over into hyperventilation. That had probably saved both their lives. 

“Seriously,” Maria mutters, “None of your shit. Why intervene? From the sound of it, sticking your neck out for me cost you. Why bother?”

Magdalena blinks at her, face open and guileless. As if she could ever be defenceless. “You said please.”

“I didn’t expect you to-“

“Then why bother asking, if you know all hope is lost? Why surrender your pride?” Magdalena’s smile is almost gentle, and doesn’t that just burn. “You might not trust me with much, but you trust me with your life. And why not? I had you entirely in my hands tonight – you understand that, yes? And what did I do with that gift?”

“You drank my _blood_ ,” Maria spits.

The monster scoffs. “I took a few mouthfuls, for appearances sake. To be quite frank, you should be praising my restraint. The way you tasted…” she trails off, and Maria fancies she can see her tongue moving inside her mouth, hungry and questing. Abruptly, she’s painfully conscious of her pulse points.

“How did I taste?” slips from her lips. Only once she’s spoken does she notice the curiosity in her voice, but she’s too late to bite it back.

Magdalena’s grin splits her face open, beautiful and a little grotesque with those needle-sharp fangs pressing against her lower lip. “Like a forest at night. Like the pounding of a hammer on red-hot steel. Like the chase, and the kill.”

Her words should be melodramatic to the point of ridicule. At the least, it should be violating, horrific. It shouldn’t hit Maria like this, low in the gut and as heavy as a punch.

It’s the enthrallment. It must be, getting under her skin and setting it on fire. No matter that she’s wanted to be this close to Magdalena since the vampire saved her life the first time. Since the first time Maria had saved hers. She can’t even be _considering-_

She can’t help but notice that she hasn’t pulled away. That she doesn’t particularly want to. 

Magdalena’s nostrils flare slightly, her eyes narrowing - then they widen again, pupils flaring bright. She shifts against the wood, and Maria tracks her on instinct, skin buzzing. As if she’s poised to begin a hunt, body preparing for a chase, a fight. 

Slowly, as if she’s afraid Maria will bolt if she goes too fast, Magdalena’s knee nudges upwards, slipping between her spread legs. She only rests it lightly against Maria’s crotch, just a whisper of pressure. Just enough that Maria can chase it, hips rocking down. It takes a moment to find the right angle, to grind her clit properly against Magdalena’s thigh, hot friction that skirts the edge of painful.

Goddess, it feels good. Painfully good. She’s already soaked, can feel the slick spreading as her hips shift, finding a rhythm, picking up speed.

“Good girl,” Magdalena whispers, urging her on with an almost-painful grip on her arse. “Good, beautiful girl. Come on then, take what you want, you’re so beautiful like this. As beautiful as you are with blood streaked down your face, in your leather armour – leather armour, my God, do your leaders know what that _looks_ like? You could be lovely anywhere, but that moment you were in my power, your beating heart flowing into my mouth-“

“Shut _up_ ,” Maria hisses, slapping a hand over Magdalena’s mouth, snarling when she feels the smile curving under her lips.

Suddenly she’s being spun, back smacking against the wall as Magdalena crowds in, wedging her thigh tight between Maria’s legs. “No,” the monster croons in her ear, cool hands curling around her wrists and tightening. “I want you to listen to this. I want you to know how lovely you are, beautiful little mortal, so sharp, so _strong_. Defiant to the last. God knows I wish you’d crumble for me, but you wouldn’t be nearly as lovely if you were so easily broken, would you?”

Maria gasps, sinks her teeth into her lip. Her desire is a living thing, eating her from the inside. Magdalena’s face, the rolling pressure against her clit, are the only things that matter, everything else so distant she can barely even see it.

_"Why intervene?"_ Magdalena whispers, "what a joke. As if I could have stood to let any other touch you. To taste you, to hold you in the aftermath. Those things are mine, lovely, mine alone." Deep in the thick , sweet haze of arousal, Maria can't spare breath to protest the possession, thick in Magdalena's voice. Can't imagine why she ever _would._

When she comes, it’s like a bomb going off, destructive and burning and all over. She sinks her teeth into the rich silk of Magdalena’s dress to muffle her scream.

She hangs there for long moments, sucking in oxygen and trying to calm her shaking muscles. The hands at her wrists help, loosening to pet up and down her arms, grounding her once again.

“Feel better now?” Magdalena asks, her tone flirting with innocence.

“Fuck you,” Maria mutters, wishing she could summon up enough venom to make the curse word stick. Wishing the chuckle Magdalena presses into the top of her head wasn’t making her quite so weak-kneed.

She rests against the wall, against her monster, for as long as she can allow herself. The effort it takes to push her away is a little terrifying; she’s just glad that Magdalena goes with the weak shove. “So. How exactly do you propose to keep me alive until daylight?”

“Well,” Magdalena replies, “I think keeping you locked up here is a good start, don’t you? And of course, I’d have to stay, in case someone broke in.”

Her smile is ivory-white and as sharp as broken china.


End file.
